


THE WISDOM OF SHEBA

by Anne_Fairchild



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Foreshadowing, Unconditional Love, gratitude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 20:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15714273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: Zita muses on her love for her lord and master.





	THE WISDOM OF SHEBA

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meridianrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/gifts).



> I just wanted to be in Zita’s head and let her speak. She disappeared too quickly and her death was glossed over too easily. Inspired by meridianrose’s encouragement in my latecoming to this fandom.

They say he is evil, ruthless in his pursuits; an unfeeling monster. I have found him to be kind and fair with me, and he gains nothing by it except my gratitude. I’m no more than a slave who was bought and can easily be sold, thought of by most as merely an object. Not by my lord, though. He feeds and clothes me well. He asks after me and my needs and wants more than many would. He values learning, and he’s had me, a dark woman from a heathen land, educated. He listens to me; he values what I think, and feel. He protects me from others who would cause me pain for their own pleasure. He has never used me, his property, in a carnal way when all expected it, including me. How can that describe a monster?

We all must do what others demand of us, whether we are slave or master. He is in thrall to his religion, and to that man who is supposed to represent God’s, and man’s, goodness but instead is everything evil in both. That is something he will not listen to, I dare not speak of it to him.

I hear and see him, late in the night, praying to his God for guidance. If only that guidance would free him to be the kind, gentle, learned man I know instead of the murderer his uncle has made of him. Oh yes, I know what he has done - what he does on the orders of His Holiness, who is anything but holy. But others do not know how he suffers for it.

He does not sleep, or eat enough. He takes little pleasure in life - his food and drink, his fine clothes, and perhaps a spirited horse. These are food for his body, but not for his soul. He is a scholar at heart, a seeker of wisdom and truth, though he is rarely allowed to express it. The man Da Vinci is good for him. He takes my lord out of himself and permits him to learn and question his beliefs - Da Vinci draws him away from the Church’s selfish evil.

Yet I have seen the way Da Vinci looks at my lord - with desire. The same desire I have for him - for his body. I would easily share my lord with anyone who truly loved him as I love him. There is no such thing as too much love.

He would have freed me, to go my own way in the world. He does not see that he _is_ the world for me. Even so, when I begged him, his tender heart allowed him to give me my heart’s desire to stay with him.

He would not think to take what I offer him freely, as my Queen did to Solomon. I do not think he lusts as other men do. Whether it has to do with his past, his nature or there is another reason, I do not know, but I do not believe he has lain with Da Vinci yet. The man he calls _artista_ means more to him than he wants others to know. I see their destiny truly woven together as a single piece.

Still, I am the first who loves him to know him as Solomon knew Sheba; if I have little else, I have that. My lord is beautiful, his body young and strong. I tricked him into having me - even goaded him, perhaps, yet his taking was not unfeeling, I know it.

And after - after, and the nights since, have been the happiest of my life. My lord lets me comfort him, and hold and touch him. He comes to me willingly now, not out of lust, but for the loving comfort I give him. Lust is everywhere, upon everyone. What I share with my lord is more intimate. I give him what he’s never had before - someone who loves him unconditionally, who will not desert him or shame him; who will not use his gentle heart for evil. He has peace in my arms, and it is my joy to give it to him.

Da Vinci will be the same, I think. But he will be able to unlock something in my lord that I have not been able to. There is that between them, unspoken, that I can never be to him. I should be jealous, but find I am not. We are two halves of a whole which fit around my lord, cradling him in our love. What I cannot give him or he will not take from me will come from Da Vinci.

It is one of my lord’s miracles, I think, that Da Vinci has found us in this new world. It is why I believe as I do; these things were meant to be, meant to happen as they are, and I must bow to this, as must even my lord.

There is yet another trial that has been set for him. I fear for his life, and his mind, among these people. He is strong, but even the strongest fabric can be made to rend. Perhaps I will tell him, when we lie together tonight, that a new life - his life - quickens in my belly. But perhaps I will not, yet. I do not want anything to distract him from this trial, or cause him to falter. There will be time enough.

 

 


End file.
